The field of invention relates generally to imprint lithography. More particularly, the present invention is directed measuring characteristics of a films patterned employing imprint lithography processes.
Micro-fabrication involves the fabrication of very small structures, e.g., having features on the order of micro-meters or smaller. One area in which micro-fabrication has had a sizeable impact is in the processing of integrated circuits. As the semiconductor processing industry continues to strive for larger production yields while increasing the circuits per unit area formed on a substrate, micro-fabrication becomes increasingly important. Micro-fabrication provides greater process control while allowing increased reduction of the minimum feature dimension of the structures formed. Other areas of development in which micro-fabrication has been employed include biotechnology, optical technology, mechanical systems and the like.
Exemplary micro-fabrication technique are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,960 to Willson et al. and by Chou et al. in Ultrafast and Direct Imprint of Nanostructures in Silicon, Nature, Col. 417, pp. 835–837, June 2002, which is referred to as a laser assisted direct imprinting (LADI) process. Both of these processes involve the use of forming a layer on a substrate by embossing a flowable material with a mold and subsequently solidifying the flowable material to form a patterned layer.
As a result of the small size of the features produced by micro-fabrication techniques, process diagnostics become increasingly important to determine the characteristics of films during processing and after processing. Many prior art process control and diagnostic techniques to facilitate determination of film characteristics have been employed in standard semiconductor processing operations. However, many of the existing process control and diagnostic techniques are not suitable for use with the embossing technique employed during micro-fabrication.
Thus, a need exists for providing improved process and diagnostic techniques for use with micro-fabrication processes, such as imprint lithography.